


but in time, not tonight

by kimaracretak



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Death & Resurrection, F/M, M/M, Multi, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-06 18:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10341273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: (although i give you my best / my heart my soul and so much more): There is a distance between Kashaw and death that he knows almost more intimately than he knows himself. There is a distance between Kashaw and death and when Vax'ildan falls through it he feels it tear across his own skin.Or; The one where Keyleth's plane-shift lands them in Whitestone.spoilers for ep 88+





	

**Author's Note:**

> title from delain, 'danse macabre', summary quote from myrath, 'beyond the stars'

There is a distance between Kashaw and death that he knows almost more intimately than he knows himself. He dwells there when he heals, Her name solid and quiet in the back of his skull like an arrow's point that can never be dislodged, and light pours from him into bodies that will never know that in their stillness they hold Her back.

There is a distance between Kashaw and death and when Vax'ildan falls through it he feels it tear across his own skin.

He doesn't feel deaths very often anymore, has let too many slip through his fingers to keep Her balance to allow himself to. But Vax is different, like Vex was different, like Keyleth and Z and —

— and that's too fucking many people, and so much more than he can think about right now. Something not quite like his wife is clawing at his mind, his scars, freezing colours dragging him up and out of his body until he feels weightless as a feather, vision lost.

"Kash? _Kash._ " Zahra's voice filters through the blue-white as if through a storm, and for the first time since he's known her her always-warm hands are hot enough to burn. "Kash, what's wrong, talk to me _please_." Her grip tightens on his arm, nails nearly breaking the skin, and the world crashes back into place around him as suddenly as he'd left.

"Shit." He's on the floor. When had he ended up on the floor? Zahra's crouched over him, reading abandoned on the kitchen table behind her, her face lit by a sickly dark golden glow. He can't feel her hands on his arm anymore, just a steady, pulsing cold. "What's going on?"

"I don't know." She looks almost scared. "Your arm ..."

Something crashes against the door before he can do more than glance at the black-gold light pouring from his scars. Zahra leaps to her feet, staff flying to her hand, and Kash struggles to stand up, looking for his spear.

" _Zahra!_ "

It's Vex's voice, _almost_ , if Vex's voice had ever been so high and tight and laced with sheer terror. "Wait —" he says, but Zahra's already there, flinging open the door to the back garden as if Whitestone Castle were her own before he can say anything about _rakshasa_ and _assassins_  and _just because there's no more dragons —_

But his sister has never been one for patience, and Vex flies into her arms a sodden, babbling mess almost before Kash has gotten his feet under him. He can make out his name, and Vax's, and Zahra murmuring quiet reassurances and for half a second he can almost fool himself into thinking that whatever happened to Vex isn't immediately deadly. And then he gets close enough to see over Zahra's shoulder.

Keyleth kneels in a cloud of raven feathers, soaked to the skin and shivering in the early spring wind. Vax lies in her arms, skin unearthly thin and pale where it's not swallowed by the Deathwalker's Ward, and Kash doesn't need to move closer to know that he's dead. "Fuck."

"Yeah," Keyleth says quietly.

He glances over to where Zahra's pressing kisses to Vex's forehead and decides she has that particular situation well under control. He settles on the ground next to Keyleth, presses his fingers to Vax's neck and finds only cold damp skin, veins empty and mouth silent as if they'd simply grown tired and left for a nap, leaving too many things behind with not enough promises to pick them back up.

(Kash has watched Vax's body give up secrets in bed, as Keyleth guided his hands over sensitive skin, has kissed pleased cries from Vax's lips as together they helped Keyleth fall apart and come back together under their hands. He's seen Vax broken in a sunken tomb. He's expected to see Vax dead one day ever since then, even as he kneed him affectionately in the nuts post-Thordak.

Somehow, even that hadn't prepared him for the actual sight of Vax, _dead_.)

"Fuck," he says again, for lack of anything else, and then a horrible thought occurs to him. "Please tell me you're not here because — where's Pike?" he asks instead, because after so long thinking about the end of the world he doesn't, actually, want to think that maybe this is all that's left of his ... friends.

Keyleth's lips move soundlessly, but Vex answers anyway. "She's in Emon." There's no relief in her words, but Kash feels something loosen in his chest, something he hadn't realised had twisted up small and safe and maybe a little bit scared when he opened his eyes on the floor. "We were in Vesrah, and went to the water elemental plane, and then a stupid fucking kraken ate my brother, and then Keyleth brought us here."

"That's the short version of it," Keyleth says, but she doesn't meet his eyes.

"You'll bring him back, right?" Vex asks, like she can make it true by saying it. "You brought me back, this is right."

 _We're identical_ , Vax had smirked the first time Kash had asked him about his sister, and, _the twins are identical_ , Vox Machina had laughed in a Vasselheim tavern, prying into his personal life with far more mirth than was warranted. He'd not given it much thought, not even when Vax lay next to his sister's body and made a promise that Kash hadn't heard but had felt ripple through the thin web of life and death and shadow that had bound them all for an eternal minute.

Maybe he should have. 

"You know what you're asking," he says, and it's not a question. Light throbs in his scars, an empty echo of the heartbeat Vax no longer shares with them, a yearning not unlike his wife's hunger.

Vex stares back unflinchingly, head still resting on Zahra's shoulder. "He's the Raven Queen's. I don't know really what that means, all the time, but I do know it means your wife can't have his soul."

"And yours?" The words are out of his mouth before he can come up with a nicer way of phrasing them. Not, at this point, that it matters for his choice to do the ritual, but it would be nice to know ahead of time just how much more fucked up they're all going to make the world.

"Fuck you if you think I'm not going to make the same trade he did," Vex snaps, voice breaking through her tears as Zahra strokes her hair. "Let them fight over me, I don't fucking care, Kash, _give me my brother back_."

"I hate you people," he mutters as he stands up and holds out his arms for Vax's body, but there's no real heat in it.

Vax's hair is a mess, twisted and matted with saltwater, and the strings and beads and bird skulls he was always asking them to help tie in it are crumpled and cracked. Kash works his fingers through it mindlessly as they walk to the Raven Queen's small shrine, the chimes of the decorations a soft counterpoint to Keyleth and Vex's sobs.

By the time he lays Vax out on the altar, he looks almost as beautiful as he did in life and a thousand times more hollow, like all the love that used to spill from him in kisses and affectionate punches has finally gone on ahead to meet Vax's queen, like his body's just there so they can mourn before fate takes it too.

 

**

 

In the darkness his Lady's hands are warm, Her fingertips impossibly light against his cheeks as She draws him down to a blanket of feathers to sit curled into Her side. _My champion_ , she says, _you've returned to me so soon._

He smiles crookedly. She has already given him so much more time than he expected. _Yeah, well. I was wondering how long you were gonna keep me around. Are we..._

She's smiling behind the mask. _Sweet champion, do not misunderstand. The choice is still yours, this time._

Vax feels the weight of responsibility settle in his chest like a stone.

 

**

 

Kash prepares for the ritual in silence, taking the spell components Keyleth hands him and fighting the urge to hold onto her hand a moment too long each time their fingers brush. He likes the Raven Queen's shrine, even if he'd never say so out loud: this small quiet place that's flourished under Z's hands that lets him think about the thin barrier of death away from worshipers with demands he wants even less to do with than any his wife has given him.

He finishes the last marks and steps back, meets the eyes of the statue standing watch as if Her black stone would have anything for him in this hour. There's nothing but the faintest glimmer of light, though whether it's Her or just scattered reflections of the divine light still blazing from his scars, he doesn't know.

(The light, he tries not to remind himself, that is too pale a black to be his wife's.)

"Go on then, love," he hears Z murmur from somewhere to the side, and then Vex steps forward, pulling the blue feathers from her hair.

"He's lovely like this, isn't he?" she says, tucking the feathers into Vax's hair. The blue is almost violent against the black and white. "Such a striking champion, and his wings ..." she gives a strangled laugh. "You should see us together. You probably do, don't you?"

She's talking to the Raven Queen, Kash realises a moment too late, or maybe to the indefinable space where Vax has pressed himself into Her hand and made a home.

"He's not done," Vex continues. "He's not, you _know_ he's not. You've seen K'Varn, you've seen Raishan, you know ... you know Orcus is coming."

Zahra gasps. Kash clutches his arm and tries not to groan aloud in pain as he feels his wife's laughter at the name. He wants to tell her it's too dangerous to use their names when the barriers are this thin, but he has a feeling they all stopped being careful the moment Vax stopped breathing.

"And I will fight," Vex is saying. "I will fight him for you, we all will, but I ... I need my brother for that." Her fingers play uneasy over the feathers in Vax's hair. She leans in, whispers something Kash can't hear over the magic coursing through his body. "I told you," she says when he can hear again, and he's never seen her this angry. Zahra and Keyleth each have one of her hands now, and he feels the weight of all their love like a physical barrier around their shrine. "I told you before, your deal is about both of us, it has to be. I love my brother. I _am_ my brother."

The first sigil flares, light streaking up to cling to the statue's face. Kash shivers, and hopes She was the only one who heard Vex.

 

**

 

"Vax." His sister is crying, and he wants to die all over again for having done this to her.

But he just says, "hey, Stubby," and hugs her as tight as possible, feeling phantom wings at his back flutter as if they want to wrap around her too.

"I made Her a deal," she says, face still buried in his shoulder. He can feel every single teardrop on his neck like an arrow. "Okay? I made Her a deal, and now you come back, because that's how it works with us."

He doesn't say anything, and feels her body go horribly still, her breath no longer moving in her chest.

"Vax?" She pulls back to look him in the eye. "It doesn't work if you're here and I'm there, you know. It didn't work that way in the tomb."

But it's not the tomb anymore.

Vex is still holding on.

 

**

 

Keyleth steps up next, taking Vex's place as she slips back into Zahra's arms. For a long moment she just looks at Vax, silent and overwhelmed against the enormity of the loss they're all facing.

"Hey," Kash says, taking her hand and pressing a soft kiss to her palm. "You know Vax. He just needs to hear your voice, and he'll come running."

"It's not him I'm worried about," she says softly. She still won't meet his eyes, and Kash wonders what, exactly, happened in the water elemental plane.

He laces their fingers together, squeezes tight. "I know. He'll hear you." It's not a promise, not quite, but it is as much as he can give. More than he could give if they were talking about certain other gods, but at the bottom of the well of power he's drawing on there is only winter's stillness: here, Keyleth is the only storm.

"Okay." Keyleth takes a deep breath, climbs on the altar as if daring the Raven Queen to object, and cradles Vax's head in her lap. "Okay. I know you can hear me, and I know she can too. And she has to know that you promised me..." She takes another deep breath, and her whole body trembles with it. Kash places a steadying hand on her back.

"You promised me Zephra," she says. "And I want you to have that, Vax, I want to bring you there with Kash, with our whole family, and I don't ... I still don't know what love is, half the time. And I don't know if she loves you, I don't know what it's like to be loved by a god, but if she does or ... or even if she _cares —"_ she looks up at the statue, eyes burning "— and you _do_ , don't you, because you made him your champion, you know he's not ready. And besides, Vax ... you know I'm in love with you, right? I do know that."

The flare of her daylight spell merges with the lighting of the second sigil.

 

**

 

"Vax." Keyleth is light, Keyleth is _light_ , insubstantial and home.

He holds out his arms for her, too. "Hey, Kiki. Guess I fucked up again, huh?"

"No!" she says sharply. "No, it was me, I should have ..." She shakes her head, but Vax can see the regrets still chasing themselves around in her eyes for a moment before she hugs him.

Keyleth's taller than Vax, and when he relaxes in the circle of her arms it's everything and nothing like when his Lady holds him in the dark. "Not your fault," he says, shutting his eyes and breathing in the scent of saltwater and wind that still clings to her in this emptiness. "You're going to be such a wonderful leader."

"A terrified one," she chuckles ruefully. "You're supposed to be there to see it. We're supposed to be terrified of this shit together."

"I didn't ..." He swallows hard. "I didn't think I had a future to be terrified of for so long. You gave me that, you know?"

"I know." She clutches him tighter, like she could pull him into her body and through the fabric of the world by will alone. "You're gonna come back for it, right?"

He thinks of the space where her antlers disappear into the dark, and kisses her instead of answering.

Keyleth does not let go.

 

**

 

"Kash." Zahra's watching him carefully, chin resting on Vex's shoulder. "It has to be you. The last offering, it has to be you"

The last time Kash had talked to a god, he had tried to kill Her. "The direct thing doesn't ... always work so well."

"You love him," Zahra says, as if it really could be that simple, slapping Vex's leg lightly with her tail when she makes a face. "I could offer something, if you truly asked, but..."

 _I love him_ , he doesn't say, because to love around Vesh is something he is not brave enough to admit to aloud. But Keyleth knows. Vax knows. The Raven Queen, he thinks as threads of golden light spill from the statue, might know as well.

He cannot feel Vesh, and there is no comfort in her absence.

"Kash." Keyleth, this time, taking his hand and pressing a kiss to his palm, a mirror of the comfort he had offered her. "It's okay. We're here. Ve— your wife isn't."

He looks to Vex, who shrugs, and Z, who hesitates briefly, biting her lip, before nodding.

Trust. He's supposed to be getting better at that now, along with family and love and all the other frankly inconvenient things that he can't stop caring about now that Z and the twins and Keyleth are in his life. He still has no idea what to say.

 _I love him_ , he thinks, and only knows one way to say it. "Hey, asshole. I thought we had an entire conversation about you, you know, not getting dead." His eyes drift up to the statue. "Oh, fuck it, you're right here, aren't you?"

He can't see Her this time, not like in the tomb, but he can _feel_  Her, the tense uncertainty of fate carrying their words to wherever Vax's soul is waiting. "You know who I ... who my god is. You know why it's not right with only two of us here." Keyleth makes a small, questioning noise at his side, but he continues, "Vax doesn't treat this like a game. You owe him the same."

He fits his hand over Vax's heart, watches gold dance between their bodies, and the final sigil lights up almost before he's finished speaking.

 

**

 

He doesn't expect Kash to be his third visitor.

He does, to be fair, expect the slap to his face a little more.

"Two-one," Vax grins, clutching his cheek.

Kash doesn't smile. "Stop fucking dying, oh my _gods._ "

Vax sobers up immediately. "I didn't mean to," he says seriously. "I need you to know, whatever I might have tried in the past ... things just went very, very wrong today."

"I know," Kash says, and he catches the flicker of surprise in Vax's eyes. "What, you think I never tried after I found out who I'd married?"

"Oh." Kash braces himself for the question, the _what changed_ or _do you mean it didn't work_  or _what now_ , but it doesn't come. "It's not like that, with Her. I wondered, at first, if it might be easier if it was. At least then I'd know what She wanted from me."

Kash laughs hollowly. "No, trust me, it's not better. She gave you a choice today, didn't she?"

"Yeah," Vax smiles. "Not really what I expected when I went looking for it all those times, but sort of ... useful. Nice, almost. But not forever. Not tonight."

"Come on, then." He extends a hand, which Vax takes gracefully. "Resurrecting half-elf twins is my thing now. Can't be a disappointment to the family."

Vax kisses him, swift and hard and gone before Kash can return the kiss properly. "You couldn't disappoint me, you know. But I'll make it up to you, down there."

His eyes are shining.

Kash keeps his hand in both of his own.

 

**

 

In the darkness Vax lies on soft ground and feels the brush of wings against his cheek like a promise of safety that does not wish to leave. His Lady kneels over him, and he knows that still She smiles. _You have chosen the longest road, sweet champion,_  she says, and there's the faintest suggestion of approval in her voice that reminds him exactly what he's leaving.

She laughs, though not unkindly. _Do not fret, Vax'ildan. I cannot walk with you, that does not mean I am gone from you._

He wants to say something, and the shape of it is, _do not go far from me_ , but he does not know how to ask that of anyone except Vex.

Does not have to ask, with his Lady. She shakes her head, and the porcelain mask dissolves as she bends to kiss his forehead. _So much love for one heart,_ she says, and Vax breathes in the light as her hand settles on his chest. _Take this. We will speak soon, my champion._

 _Thank you, my Lady_ , he says, and she strokes his cheek a final time as, for the briefest moment, he feels another heartbeat pulse alongside his own.

 

**

 

A familiar figure slips from Her statue, one gold thread dangling from a claw-tipped hand.

 _My champion's charge is not yet complete_. Her voice fills their minds, incongruously soft in the stillness. _Come find me when the time is right, and I call to you to meet me beyond the divine gate._

The thread sinks into Vax's chest, darkness swallowing the sun.

Vax opens his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> me: i wonder how much it would hurt if tempest/death goddess vesh meant kash felt it when vax died  
> me, 3.5k words of a resurrection ritual later: oh, okay, that's ... a lot ...


End file.
